Sew Good, Sew Good

Amazing Agnes

I keep wanting to call this shirt the “Angus pattern” instead of Agnes because of a book I read 15 years ago! Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging has since been turned into a movie so perhaps you’ve heard of it in one of its forms?

The pattern has nothing to do with the book or movie it’s just something about the name that gets me thinking about it. Now that I have gotten that out of my system, onto the top!

When Tilly wrote on the pattern envelope that this is going to be your favorite top, she’s not kidding. First of all, the fit for me is 90% perfect right out of the envelope which is something I love about her patterns! The only change I need to make is to add more length to the arms for the long sleeved version. Right out of the envelope I need about an extra inch and am thinking I will need more if I make the rouched long sleeves.

For my first version of Agnes I used a very forgiving striped rayon knit that I got from Fabric.com with the intention of making a Coco, how’s that for ironic? My pattern matching is subpar right below the armscye, but I made up for it as I got further down.

The rayon jersey was extremely shifty and stretchy. I think if I used a comparable jersey again I will shorten the neck band. As you can see in this photo it droops a little bit in the front because I didn’t have to stretch it very much to get it to fit.

Having now made quite a few knit tops on my regular sewing machine and on my serger, I can tell you that I really prefer a regular sewing machine for lighter knits. Serging may produce a clean finish, but I like the strength of a zigzag, it feels more secure to me. I’m going to make an Agnes with my serger to confirm since I have made both the Plantain and Renfrew on both machines.

I’ve been wearing this top at least once a week. We’ve been having a lot of rain in Massachusetts and I like to be covered up. The fabric is light enough that I’m not stifling and looks quite nice if I do say so myself. After I finished this top I took all of the knit fabrics from my stash to see which ones would be good to make others with. So far I want to use all of the knits I own (and the 2 I just bought) and wear Agnes every day. Like all of Tilly’s patterns I have used, Agnes is very versatile and I can imagine doing so many different things to this pattern! I think my next one is going to be light blue with the sleeves shortened to elbow-length and the sweetheart neckline or maybe I’ll work on another striped version (in this fabulous fabric I picked up at Grey’s) to match my WIP Arielle skirt.

Speaking of Grey’s, I’ve been going to Crafty Foxes Sewing Club whenever I can over the last month or so and a few weeks ago we had a celebrity guest! I’ve never had the pleasure of watching the French Sewing Bee, Cousu Main, due to the language barrier (curse you high school and college Spanish classes!), but I have followed Carmen on Instagram for quite a while so I was very excited to meet her in real life. I was wearing my Agnes shirt at the time so I stole this photo from Jenny’s Instagram to share here. 🙂

It’s amazing what being in a group of like-minded people can do for one’s productivity. I’ve been keeping track of how many items I make every month so at the end of the year I can do a recap and June was by far my slowest sewing month (Agnes was the only project I started and finished in June), but since I’ve been going to Crafty Foxes my sewing mojo seems to be back. I’ve made more things in July than any other month this year. If you’re in the Boston area I highly recommend you come by on Wednesday nights!